■SRI LANKA
Military makes new inroads
The military said yesterday that it had recovered a torched bulletproof vehicle belonging to the leader of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas. The military also said it destroyed three rebel boats and recovered 40 bodies of dead rebels after another day of heavy fighting on Friday in the northeast of the country. Government forces are in what they say is a final push to defeat the rebels — the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam — and end 25 years of civil war. A string of major victories by the military in recent months, in which the rebels’ administrative capital and main bases were captured, has pushed the guerillas into a strip of coastal land measuring just 21km² in the northeast. A military statement said five vehicles, including one used by leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, were recovered late on Friday.
■NEW ZEALAND
Church sex ad not so fun
A Wellington sex shop has upset the Catholic Church with an advertisement showing a praying woman with a smile on her face, a newspaper reported yesterday. The D.Vice store’s ad shows four parishioners in a church; three of them have their eyes closed and hands clasped. But the fourth, a woman, is smiling and below her is a tagline describing a sexual aid and its price, the Dominion Post reported. Wellington’s Catholic Archbishop John Dew told the paper it was “unnecessary and distasteful” to associate a church with a sex shop device, adding: “It is an insult to anyone who recognises a church as a sacred gathering place for believers in God and a place of prayer.” Wendy Lee, a director of D.Vice, said the billboard was meant to make people laugh and not to offend, while marketing spokesman Rene Bros said the campaign showed people thinking about sex while performing everyday tasks.
■CHINA
Worker blows himself up
A man killed himself and injured two others when he blew himself up at an office building in Urumqi, capital of China’s western region of Xinjiang, the Xinhua news agency said. Han Wushun, an ethnic Chinese migrant worker from Sichuan Province, demanded 4,500 yuan (US$658) in wages from the Xinjiang Beixin Road and Bridge Construction Co on Thursday afternoon before detonating explosives he carried in a black satchel, Xinhua said. Han had worked for the company for three months in 2007. He sued in a local court for the money early last year, but lost his case in July, Xinhua said. The agency quoted an unnamed manager of the company as saying Han had been paid in full according to his contract.
■CHINA
Protesters persuaded to quit
A protest march of more than 1,000 people heading to Beijing to petition the government about job losses at a textile company has fizzled out, Xinhua reported yesterday. The protesters, traveling on foot and by bicycle, set out from Baoding town in Hebei Province on Friday, but most had been persuaded to go back home, the agency said. “The local government arranged buses to carry the workers back,” it said. Xinhua earlier quoted one protester, who declined to be identified, as saying the marchers would petition the government about restructuring of the 4,000-strong company. It quoted a local official as saying no conflict had been reported. Baoding is 140km from Beijing.
■SINGAPORE
E-mailer’s sanity probed
A court is seeking a further psychiatric report on a 40-year-old man who sent out e-mails threatening airlines and the US government, claiming to speak for al-Qaeda, the Straits Times reported yesterday. The court has put off sentencing Josemaria Miguel Ye Yong Qiang, who sent e-mails threatening Irish Air Arann and US Delta Airlines, as well as the US embassy in Canberra. In September last year he sent an e-mail glorifying the New York attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to the White House, identifying himself as an al-Qaeda member. Ye’s lawyer said the unemployed man wanted to inconvenience American and European airlines out of frustration for having been bullied by some of his white colleagues while working and studying abroad.
■AUSTRALIA
Drunk driver loses appeal
A drunk driver who let his sons die alone after a crash lost an appeal against his eight-year jail sentence in a Brisbane court yesterday. Alan Ross, 27, was drunk, had no license and was traveling at twice the speed limit when he rolled his car after losing control. He ran from the scene of the accident, leaving his dying infant sons behind. Ross claimed the sentence was too severe, but the court dismissed his appeal, saying it was important to acknowledge the gravity of the offense.
■AUSTRALIA
Teen sailor in Tasmania
An English teenager docked in Tasmania yesterday at the halfway point of his attempt to break a round-the-world sailing record held by an Australian. Mike Perham, only just 17, hopes to break the record set 10 years ago by Melbourne’s Jesse Martin, who was 18 when he circumnavigated the globe alone. Perham, who set out in November, is an experienced solo sailor, having crossed the Atlantic single-handed at age 14.
■RUSSIA
Man jailed in sex case
A court sentenced a 41-year-old man to life in prison on Friday for murdering four girls and raping a fifth who was found chained to the wall of his cellar, state media reported. Former convict Ivan Panchenko was arrested last year in the town of Svetlograd after police found a girl locked in his cellar and the body of second girl buried in his garden. “She was chained to the wall of the cellar with a dog collar,” state investigator Andrei Ravayev said in comments broadcast on Channel One television. The girl who was rescued told the police that both of them had been raped by Panchenko, Channel One said. The girls, whose families lived nearby, were aged seven and 11 at the time, the report said, without saying which girl survived. Panchenko later confessed to killing three other girls in the late 1990s, the report said. State news agency RIA Novosti quoted investigators as saying Panchenko kept two of the girls, aged 15 and 16, in a dugout in a nearby forest. On Friday, Panchenko was shown sitting in a green cage in the courtroom surrounded by six police officers as the judge announced his sentence. He has already spent 20 years in prison on various charges, including theft, drug use and murder, Channel One reported.
■YEMEN
Two die in wedding gunfire
A villager opened fire indiscriminately during his daughter’s wedding party on Friday, killing two young women and injuring four others including the bride, police sources said. The gunman, identified as Hamoud Ahmed Obaid, rampaged with an AK-47 rifle during the ceremony in the Ga’afaria village in Dalea Province, the sources said. The two victims, aged 15 and 20, were killed on spot and four others were rushed to hospitals in a nearby town. Police arrested the assailant, but his motives were not immediately clear.
■EGYPT
New bird flu case confirmed
A toddler has contracted the highly pathogenic bird flu virus, the latest in an upswing of cases in the most populous Arab country, state news agency MENA said on Friday. The case brings to 62 the number of confirmed cases of the H5N1 avian flu virus in Egypt, which has been hit harder by bird flu than any other country outside of Asia and has reported seven human infections since March 1. The 21-month-old boy, Hassan Gamil Hassan Mohamed, is from the province of Beheira in the north and was in a “good” condition after being treated with the antiviral drug Tamiflu, MENA reported. The new infection came several days after a two-year-old boy from the same province contracted the virus.
■SOMALIA
Destroyer aids ship
A Japanese destroyer on an anti-piracy mission off Somalia has given emergency protection to a Singapore-registered ship by chasing four suspicious boats, the defense ministry said yesterday. The 4,650 tonne Sazanami, deployed to protect Japanese-registered vessels in and around the Gulf of Aden, received a radio call for help from the Singaporean ship on Friday, the ministry said. The warship issued a verbal warning through loudspeakers and beamed a searchlight at four suspicious boats that had been pursuing the Singaporean ship, a defense ministry spokeswoman said. The four boats — one “sizable” vessel and three small boats — then left the area, the spokeswoman said, adding that neither side used weapons and that the four suspicious vessel were not identified.
■UNITED STATES
Teenagers plead guilty
Prosecutors said three teenage boys have pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of a popular Seattle street musician known as “Tuba Man.” Fifty-three-year-old Edward McMichael died on Nov. 3 at his home after he was attacked and beaten by a group of youths on Oct. 25 near the Seattle Center. McMichael was known for wearing whimsical hats as he played a variety of music on his tuba outside Seattle sporting events. A crowd of about 1,500 turned out for his memorial service. The teens were all 15 when the crime was committed. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg says they entered their pleas on Friday in Juvenile Court. Sentencing is set for April 22.
■UNITED STATES
Man claims he killed actor
Police said they had charged a 26-year-old man with capital murder and aggravated assault in the killing of Texas actor Lou Perryman. The 67-year-old Perryman had appeared in such movies as The Blues Brothers, Boys Don’t Cry and When Zachary Beaver Came to Town. Police Sergeant Joseph Chacon said 26-year-old Christopher Tatum showed up at a jail facility on Thursday saying he was “pretty sure” he had killed the owner of a vehicle he had stolen. Police later found Perryman’s body at a home. Investigators said they did not believe Tatum and Perryman knew each other.
■UNITED STATES
Visa fraud exposed
A federal jury found twin brothers guilty of conspiring to obtain fraudulent work visas for nearly 90 Indian nationals in exchange for cash, the Attorney’s Office said on Friday. Alberto and Bernardo Pena, 39, of Brownsville were found guilty on all 16 counts. The jury found that the brothers had encouraged 87 people from the Indian state of Gujarat to enter the US on temporary visas. They knew that the Indian nationals did not intend to work for the company used to get their visas and did not intend to return to India after the 10-month visas expired, a news release from Attorney Tim Johnson said.
■UNITED STATES
Gay man accuses ‘Playboy’
Playboy magazine’s former fashion director claims he was fired because of his sexual orientation and his age. Joseph DeAcetis filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court saying the magazine’s editorial director “made fun” of him because he is gay and his hair was gray. The lawsuit says that the editorial director referred to homosexuals as “girls.” The 45-year-old DeAcetis became a staffer at Playboy in 2005. He says his duties were gradually given to a younger, straight male assistant and a straight female editor. Playboy Enterprises spokeswoman Elizabeth Austin said the company “takes these allegations very seriously” and has been investigating internally.
■UNITED STATES
Nail found in man’s head
Prax Sanchez said he did not recall any serious hammer-and-nail mishaps in his past. Yet doctors administering magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the 72-year-old Colorado man last month abruptly stopped the exam to tell him there seemed to be something metallic in his face. Right after the MRI, Sanchez coughed up a 2.5cm-long nail. His doctor, Jamieson Kennedy, told television station KKTV in Colorado Springs that the nail might have been embedded there as long as 30 years. The MRI’s magnetic force apparently dislodged the nail, causing Sanchez to cough it up. Sanchez says he can’t remember ever using a nail like it. “I’ll probably frame it,” he said on Friday.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS